Cherreads

Chapter 59 - The Meeting That Wasn't Supposed to Happen

Late at night

While the academy lights dimmed and most players were passed out or still grumbling over Keisuke's board domination

Coach Matsuda sat in his office

Alone

Until someone knocked

Not a player

Not staff

It was Headmaster Yoneda himself

The man rarely showed up in the football wing unless it was serious

"You saw what he did?" Matsuda asked

Yoneda didn't sit

Didn't blink

"I saw more than that" he said

"He's doing what your generation couldn't"

Matsuda leaned back

"He's just a kid playing puppet master

It won't last"

"But what if it does?" Yoneda replied

"What if he's not trying to be part of the system

But rewrite it?"

Silence

Matsuda turned toward the window

Out there

Keisuke might still be awake

Mapping his next five steps

"I can stop him

Shift the spotlight

Bury his momentum before it becomes dangerous" Matsuda said

Yoneda chuckled softly

"You don't stop a storm by yelling at the clouds

You adjust the sails or get swallowed"

Before he left

Yoneda dropped a sealed envelope on the desk

"International scouts will be at the inter-academy exhibition next month

Keisuke will play

And you won't clip his wings"

Matsuda stared at the envelope

His fingers tightening

Outside

Keisuke stood under the empty goalpost

Not training

Just…thinking

No ball

No coach

No noise

Only calculation

If anyone had been close enough

They might've heard him mumble

"It's time to make the world my chessboard"

And just like that

Chapter 60 ends with two grown men sweating over a kid who still hadn't even shown half his cards

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